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Friday, April 28, 2000 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER 27 Arts & Entertainment A n O a kville B eaver F eatu re Editor CAR O L BALDW IN, 845-3824 (Extension 254) Fax: 337-5567 * Passionate pianist Piano prodigy' s passion for playing led her to the Silver Thom Shield and scholarship B y Carol Baldw in ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Perky. That's the best way to describe Jen nifer Cullen. The 17-year-old has a passion for life and for playing the piano. And both those passions are reflected in her choice of composers, as she cites ' Beethoven and Rachmaninoff as her favourites. "I can relate to their pieces. They have differ ent tempos, different moods, different sorts of styles. Beethoven can go soft and quiet and then go really passionate," she explains. "Both of them do the passionate, and that's what I love about piano. And I'm able to convey that to the audi ence with those types of pieces." So, it is no wonder the Oakville prodigy was awarded the Silver Thom Shield, which comes with a $500 scholarship, at the recent Mississauga Kiwanis Music Festival. "You compete in your regular classes and then the adjudicator recommends you to play on that special night. There were 10 people...the best in the class...the creme de la creme," says Cullen, explaining that the Silver Thom Shield is then awarded to the best of those 10 musicians. And in her case they were all at the Grade 10 level in their music. This enthusiastic pianist has been tickling the ivories since she was five years old with only a six month break in 12 years, which came after she Photo by Barrie Erskine and her family moved to Oakville from British Jennifer Cullen, 17, recently won the Silver Thom Shield for her piano play Columbia. ing at the Mississauga Kiwanis Music Festival. The prestigious award conies "I wanted something new. So, I went to classi with a $500 scholarship, which she will put towards her piano studies. cal guitar, but I couldn't live without piano. So I stopped that and went back to piano," Cullen says. "I do vocal now. So, I do have two instru ments...I'll be doing my Grade 9 vocal in June. And I'm in a singing festival at the beginning of May - the Hamilton Kiwanis." The Oakville teen is willing to admit that she had to be cajoled into practising the piano when she was a little girl, but she's quick to give her mother credit for insisting she persevere. Appar ently, though, it only took a challenging piece of music to get the determined young woman back on the piano stool to practise. "Sometimes I couldn't wait to get home from school just to play a piece because it was so excit ing. I'd dream about it," she says, adding, "I com pose symphonies in my dreams. But I don't remember them when I wake up. I'm probably plagiarizing someone. I don't think I'll ever com pose. I've tried it. It doesn't come naturally." But playing does come naturally to the young virtuoso. And she enjoys sharing her love for piano music with young children. However, she says, she can empathize with her students when they complain about practising. "My students don't like to practise and I understand that because I went through the same thing myself," she says, with a laugh, adding that she teaches nine piano students from beginners to Grade 4 and has an equal number on a waiting list. "Now I practise three hours a day before a competition. But if I don't have a competition to work for, it's about an hour-and-a-half." That's quite a commitment considering the Queen Elizabeth Park student is teaching piano (See `Classical' on page 33) ^Acting aficionado Says stage presence as im portant as acting B y C a ro l B aldw in ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR A few hours before he turned 13, Julian Frid won the Elsie Thompson Memorial Award for Outstanding Performance by a Juvenile at the Western Ontario Drama League Festival. And winning this, his first award, was quite a thrill for the Oakville teen, who was the youngest of the three nominees. "This is the first time I've been in an acting com petition," he says. "My mother said, `You're going to get it (the award).' And that made me even more ner vous. What if I don't get it?" But he did. And he got it for playing the title role in Burlington Little Theatre's production of The Winslow Boy. However, he wasn't the main character, but the acting aficionado is quick to point out that he did have a substantial number of lines and was on stage throughout the production. "I had a lot of stage presence. Actors aren't just needed for their lines. Stage presence makes you important in the play," he explains. "You always have a presence, so the audience can see you. You may not have lines, but you have to show emotions on your face. Sometimes that's difficult. Showing emotions is tough." Julian's mother, Dia, a well-known actor and director in Oakville, played his sister in this particular production. And although Julian had worked under his mother as a director in the past, this was the first time that mother and son had interacted on stage. "There were a lot of good scenes that we did. But it was very difficult," the young actor admits, adding, "My mother is very focused and she stays in charac ter. When you are in character, you see an entirely different person. It works well, unless you don't stay focused." And staying focused and in character are two things that Julian works hard at, especially in his act ing classes where he concentrates on the fundamen tals of acting, which include developing skills as sim ple as proper breathing to those as difficult as getting into character. "You can't just smile when you're happy. That doesn't do it," he says. "You have to get into the char acter and forget about your life. If you're feeling down in your life, you can't be grumpy if that's not in your character." Julian's acting teachers also give him opportunities to apply his newly learned performance skills, and then critique them. But he has developed a thick skin, he says, citing his mother as his biggest critic. "When I was just getting started, I wasn't used to (See `Mom' on page 31) Photo by B arrie E rskine Julian Frid, 13, won an acting award for playing the title role in T h e W in s lo w B o y , whose family fought to keep him out of jail.